Amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charge on Maharashtra vis-a-vis the exodus of migrant workers during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government has taken an aggressive stance, vociferously condemning the statement. The MVA partners also targeted the BJP in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Nana Patole said that if BJP leaders in the state have any respect for Maharashtra, they should also protest against the Prime Minister's statement. “Otherwise, they will be recorded as traitors in the history of the state,” Patole told reporters a day after Modi lashed out at the Congress in the Lok Sabha.
Patole said that since the people of Maharashtra ousted the BJP from power, all BJP leaders from the state to Delhi are taking out their hatred against the state by hatching false conspiracies to discredit the state.
“But, the Prime Minister has crossed all the boundaries to show his hatred towards the state as speaking on the President's address, he has insulted Maharashtra. He has forgotten that he is the Prime Minister for the whole country. By making such statements, he has done away with the dignity of the Prime Minister’s post and has reduced the post to that of a BJP campaigner,” Patole said.
According to him, the Congress party and the MVA government in the state took the initiative to help everyone in distress. "Arrangements were made to provide meals and tickets to the workers and labourers to ensure that they were escorted safely and with full dignity to their homes. When the workers were suffering, rather than easing their woes, the Prime Minister was appealing to the public to light lamps and beat plates. He himself was busy feeding the peacocks inside his residence. He had left the common man to fend for himself during the pandemic and was more concerned about his industrialist friends,” he said.
NCP chief spokesperson and Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik said that the ‘Namaste Trump’ event was responsible for the spread of coronavirus. “When the Maharashtra government was asking for a ban on international flights, your own (the then) health minister (Dr Harsh Vardhan) was stressing that the coronavirus infection will not spread,” he said.